Have you ever struggled to find a word to precisely say what you needed to say? I have. Words have nuance and synonyms help but there’s a catch. It’s easy to choose the wrong word. That’s the trouble with synonyms.
Knowing how to format your manuscript can save you hours of work and loads of money.
This post is the first in a series using John Delvin’s book How to Speak and Write Correctly. Over the course of many posts, I will discuss various aspects of writing beginning with the Ten Commandments of Style. For convenience, I refer to Delvin’s list as 10 Writing Style Rules Every Writer Should Know.
As a lifetime reader, I have read many books, some bad, some good, some awful and some forgettable. The Chosen by Chaim Potok for me was superb and unforgettable.
It seems to me that most writers have a list of must read authors. I could be wrong, but I’d bet I’m not. For me, my list is diverse and comes mostly from those books I enjoyed in my youth.
For lessons on writing go to Mark Twain for How to tell a story. Is Mark Twain the best storyteller of all times? I think so. We can learn storytelling from storytellers like him.
Learning to write well is an ongoing process. In this blog, I share 6 must read books on writing. Some of these books have been around for ages, others, not as long. Either way, they’re good books. I hope you’ll pick up one or two of them.
Good stories create a vivid and continuous fictional dream. It’s not easy. In this third and final post based on Gardner’s idea of fictional dreams, let’s discuss how to make our stories vivid and free of distractions. By detail a writer achieves vividness – John Gardner
Write fiction without distractions. One of the most important skills to master is how to tell a compelling story. When a story is well-written it’s impossible for the reader to think of anything except the next word, followed by the next sentence and then the next page. To do this well the author must learn […]
If Gardner is correct, then writers must figure out how to create a fictional dream for the reader. Let’s explore Gardner’s idea. To provide the most comprehensive overview, this discussion has three parts.
These days, many writers have comma splices in their work. I don’t know if it’s an issue of knowledge or a matter of preference. Either way, I’ve read novels where the author used comma splices thought the book. I’m left wondering if the trend is here to stay. I hope not.
Like so many writers, as a child, I read all the time. I still read a lot. There is no way to laser in on what makes the books we love, the books we love. Yet, sometimes, we just go all in. Perhaps the writing entices us or perhaps it’s all about the story. Either […]